


this love fills my lungs with you

by troubadore



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hanahaki Disease, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26129731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troubadore/pseuds/troubadore
Summary: Geralt hums again as he checks his alchemical ingredients bag. "Ipomoea alba. They're native to places in Nilfgaard and the southern region of Verden.""Ah." Jaskier studies the petals. They're quite soft between his fingers. "I think I've seen them before. Locals in Nazair call them moonflowers or moon vines."Geralt looks reluctantly impressed. "You know botany and you didn't think to tell me?""What, and be expected to pull my own weight and not just let you take care of everything?" Jaskier blinks up at him with so much forced innocence he can smell his own bullshit.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 25
Kudos: 602





	this love fills my lungs with you

**Author's Note:**

> this was going to be the "fluffiest hanahaki au one has ever read" but there ended up being more soft angst by the end than i intended because, well. it's hanahaki au ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

When the coughing fit subsides, Jaskier looks up to see Geralt holding a delicate white petal between his fingers, head tilted as he examines it. 

Geralt's eyebrow raises as he looks back at Jaskier. "Eating wild flora now, are we." 

Jaskier wipes his mouth and makes a grab for the petal, which Geralt relinquishes. "Oh, ha ha, very funny. _No._ Though—you _would_ tell me if someone attempted to feed me a bouquet while I was in my cups, wouldn't you? Geralt?" 

Geralt's hum is not reassuring in the slightest as he turns away to finish packing his things, the bastard. But his mouth twitches at the corner, and Jaskier feels mollified regardless. 

There are a few more of the strange white petals scattered on the floor next to the bed from when Jaskier had woken abruptly with a tickle in his throat and bent over the side as a fit took him. He gathers them up, grimacing at the feel of his own spit on them. 

"What are they, do you know?" 

Geralt hums again as he checks his alchemical ingredients bag. " _Ipomoea alba._ They're native to places in Nilfgaard and the southern region of Verden." 

"Ah." Jaskier studies the petals. They're quite soft between his fingers. "I think I've seen them before. Locals in Nazair call them moonflowers or moon vines." 

Geralt looks reluctantly impressed. "You know botany and you didn't think to tell me?" 

"What, and be expected to pull my own weight and not just let you take care of everything?" Jaskier blinks up at him with so much forced innocence he can smell his own bullshit. 

The exasperated look he gets in response makes him laugh, finally pushing himself out of the bed to dress and gather his own things. He makes quick work of it—most of it had been ready to go the night before—and then they're heading downstairs for breakfast. 

  
.

It's the strangest sensation to experience while conscious. He can _feel_ the petals brush up against his lungs, a soft caress inside his chest before it creeps into his throat and he coughs them up. 

Jaskier has a handful of them from this most recent fit, inspecting them with curiosity. They're surprisingly fragrant, but it's a gentle scent, comforting. It reminds him of home. 

Which is doubly strange, considering Kerack is distinctly devoid of moonflowers. 

"More?" Geralt asks, and Jaskier looks up to see him tying his hair back as he steps into the room, a certain relaxed set to his shoulders that means he actually enjoyed the fuck this time. Probably even went for a round two for the hell of it—he'd made enough coin on the last hunt for it, certainly, and the ladies in this particular town's brothel seemed more than eager to help relax a witcher. 

_I could've helped him relax, if he'd stayed._

Something twists in Jaskier's gut at the thought, and then he's doubled over in another fit. He spits more petals into his hand, feeling them slide against the inside of his throat in a whisper of a touch. Geralt's hand is a warm weight on his back, and Jaskier leans into the touch instinctively. 

"This is...concerning," Geralt says. Jaskier can almost _hear_ the furrow in his brow. 

He hums in lieu of a response and gets up to toss the petals out the window. No sense in keeping them, if he's just going to continue coughing them up. But he supposes Geralt has a point. 

"It doesn't hurt," he says. "Just—strange. Have you seen anything like this?" 

"People coughing up flower petals? No." 

Must be a rare curse indeed if even Geralt hasn't seen anything like it before. He's lived so long and seen all sorts of things; there's very few beasts he's never come across. 

Jaskier turns back to him, smiling as brightly as he's able. He's tired though, and two fits in the same night has worn him out a bit. "Well. I've always been special, haven't I? I'm always telling you I am, now we have proof!" 

Geralt just shakes his head, but his expression is fond. Jaskier knows most of his expressions now, and that one is definitely fond. "You're a special brand of idiot, that's for sure." 

Jaskier gasps dramatically and puts a hand over his heart. There's another funny feeling in his gut but this one doesn't make him want to cough. "Rude! See if I write you another song with that attitude." 

"Finally," Geralt says, tilting his head up as if praising the gods. "Blessed silence will be mine once again at last." 

Jaskier picks up the pitiful excuse for a pillow from the bed and smacks him with it. 

  
.

Geralt storms from the destroyed banquet hall and Jaskier, as always, is right behind him. 

The tense line of his witcher's shoulders keeps him a few paces back, wanting to reach out and comfort but holding back. His witcher isn't one to welcome touch, despite how much he craves it. Instead, Jaskier swipes his hair out of his eyes and blows out a breath. 

"Well," he says, forcing cheer into his tone, "that was something!" 

"Jaskier." 

His tone is tired, bordering on the edge of anger, but Jaskier, ever the one to stick his nose where it so obviously isn't wanted, pushes on. 

"A Child Surprise! Just like Princess Pavetta herself had been! Who could have seen this absolute twist coming? Truly, you have a knack for causing the best irony." 

" _Jaskier._ " 

"All that talk of Destiny being bullshit—you really walked yourself right into that one, my dear. But really, what's so bad about it? So you have a child now, so what?" 

Geralt stops abruptly and spins on him, Jaskier's hands going up automatically as that burning golden gaze lands on him. 

"There is a reason witchers are sterile," he snaps, teeth bared, brow furrowed. "The life of a witcher is meant to be lived alone." 

"And yet," Jaskier says, stubbornly, echoing their conversation from earlier, "here we are." 

Geralt closes his eyes, taking in a sharp breath as he turns away again, though he doesn't continue his trek back toward town. He's getting himself under control, taking the time to think and collect his thoughts, and Jaskier gives it to him. 

"I am not suited," Geralt says finally, slowly, quietly, "for fatherhood. And I would not put the burden of this life on anyone, much less a child who did not ask for it." 

Unbidden, the image of Geralt, tall and strong and _good,_ swinging around a child, who laughs brightly as he smiles at them fills his mind, followed by how gentle and encouraging he'd be teaching them how to wield a sword, and how to know which berries are good for eating and which are not. 

And then, even more forbidden: them lying out beneath the stars as Geralt murmurs the stories of the constellations while Jaskier weaves them into soft lullabies, his head on his witcher's chest. 

It's so terribly, achingly domestic, so improbable, but suddenly he _yearns_ for it, for them to have this child to call their own and to live a peaceful, happy life away from monsters and beasts and Destiny and the Path. 

The tickle at the back of his throat, something he's grown used to over the years, rears its head, stronger and more urgent than ever. He coughs as the sensation intensifies, the tickle becoming a scratch and suddenly he can't breathe around it, desperately trying to draw in air as he doubles over at the waist. 

He can feel moonflower petals against his tongue and the roof of his mouth as he spits and hacks. Distantly he registers the warmth of Geralt's hand gentle on his back, kind like he is at his core, the way he tries so hard to hide because too many people would take advantage of it otherwise. 

Thinking of it, however, only seems to make it worse, and soon he's on his knees as he retches up sweet-tasting, fragrant blooms into the dirt. He wonders, vaguely, if this is it for him, if he's going to die on the side of a road leading from the Cintran castle, spitting up moonflowers while his witcher tries to comfort him. 

It ends, though, finally. He sits up on his knees, taking deep breaths now that his throat and lungs are clear. Around him, bright in the moonlight, the moonflowers look like dollops of white paint against the ground. 

Geralt has one in his hand, brow furrowed as he examines it. "They're full blooms, now." 

"So they are," Jaskier agrees, picking one up himself. The petals are terribly soft. Fragile. "Wonder what's changed." 

Geralt only hums in answer and helps him to his feet, leaving the moonflowers to scatter in the night breeze. 

  
.

Having an audience who isn't Geralt watch him cough up full blooms is nearly as unsettling as the fact they've become full blooms in the first place. 

The witch—because she can be nothing else, not with the power he can _feel_ in the air around her—seems bemused as he wipes his chin, his feet surrounded by moonflowers. He no longer feels like he's choking on his own blood, but the taste lingers, mixed with the faint taste of the blooms. 

"I have to say," the witch says, and Jaskier looks into her purple gaze, "I haven't seen this one in a while." 

"Seen what?" he asks, but there's a sinking feeling in his gut he knows what she's referring to. 

"The Flower Cough," she says. "Extremely rare. Most people think it's just a myth, if they know of it at all." 

That's not reassuring in the slightest, but it's not surprising. "What is it, exactly? Why do _I_ have it?" 

"That's the question, isn't it." She moves away from the bed, her light white dress flowing loosely around her ankles. "Not much research exists on it. Too rare to be studied. Of what _is_ known about it, it seems to hit those so deeply in love with another that that love manifests physically, growing in the lungs." 

_Deeply in love with another._ Jaskier swallows thickly, feeling the telltale tingle at the back of his throat that another fit is on the way. Thoughts of Geralt, of his witcher with panicked eyes as he'd collapsed from the djinn attack, rushing him to a healer, begging, _pleading_ this very witch before him for his life. 

His chest aches at the memory of how terribly _worried_ Geralt had been for him and he pushes it away before he doubles over again. 

"Is there a cure?" he asks instead. "Or am I meant to die, suffocated by moonflowers?" 

The witch looks back at him with an impassive gaze. She seems both completely unbothered by his plight and curious despite herself. 

"Tell him you love him," she says, and Jaskier blinks at her, taken aback. "Confession usually works. It might have to be returned to fully cure it, but the confession itself should reverse the effects enough that you won't die from it." 

It's all so unexpected that it takes him a moment to find his words. "I—what? Tell _who?_ " he asks, at a loss for anything else. 

She just gives him a pitying look. "Your witcher. Or is there another with whom you travel the Continent singing his praises and that is best represented by a _moonflower?_ " 

Well. She's got him there. And with the way his fits come mostly when he's lingering on thoughts of his witcher and their future—the one he wants of them spending the rest of their lives _together_ —he can't exactly dispute her. 

"And if I don't?" he asks quietly, looking down at his feet where the moonflowers sit in a pool of white. "If I don't tell him I love him?" 

"Then you die." She doesn't mince words. "The flower will continue to grow in your lungs until you suffocate on your love for him. Confession will slow it, and if he returns the feelings, they will wither away and you will be healed." 

"I thought you said not much was known of the ailment," he says, trying for a joking tone, but it comes out sardonic. 

"I said not much research was done on it, because it is rare," she corrects. "I didn't say I didn't know anything about it." 

There's something there, in her words—something she isn't saying. Jaskier regards her, her purple gaze cool yet full of a burning intensity. Something occurs to him. 

"Is that how _you_ got rid of it?" he asks, and the way her jaw clenches and she turns her head away tells him he's right on the money. 

"There is a price to pay," she says, "for the power to get whatever you want." 

It's more than an answer. He doesn't say anything more, simply gets to his feet and searches for the rest of his clothes. His chemise is bloodstained but his doublet is fine. She continues watching him as he pulls on his boots. 

"You should tell him," she says, as he's ready to leave the room. "He was...increasingly desperate in what he offered to make sure I saved your life. Resisted my charms and spells, too, when I tried putting him under one. Very loyal, your witcher." 

The admission that she'd attempted to coerce Geralt into doing her bidding with magic makes his blood boil, but he knows he wouldn't fare half as well as him against them if he turned around and threw something at her. The way she laughs makes him think she knows exactly what he's thinking. 

He ignores her and walks out, determined never to see her again. He'll tell Geralt he'd rather die. 

  
.

"She told you about it." 

Jaskier doesn't look up from the moonflower he's twirling between his fingers, watching the sun set on the horizon from the corner of his eye. 

He'd had another fit right after Borch had fallen, his protectors with him—the brief, flaring panic that Geralt would do the noble, self-sacrificing thing and jump after them pushing more blooms up his throat. 

"Who told me what?" he asks, putting as much ignorant nonchalance in his voice as possible. He doesn't know if he's ready for this conversation yet. 

But Geralt is _trying,_ so maybe he'll just have to be. 

"Yennefer." Geralt turns his head toward him, looking at him finally. "The Flower Cough." 

Jaskier huffs and a smile pulls at his lips. "Seems she told you, too." 

"Only what it's called. Nothing more." 

They lapse back into silence, companionable, but tinged in guilt and sadness. _You did your best. There's nothing you could have done._ Empty words, he knows, not his finest, but he had to say something. Had to keep his witcher out of his own head somehow, or he'd stew and stew until he'd convinced himself it was his fault. 

"Would it please you?" Geralt asks, and Jaskier looks at him, the fading sunlight throwing his profile into sharp relief, his gold eyes reflecting it and looking as if they're on fire. He continues, "To go to the coast?" 

Jaskier thinks about it. His words echo back to him: _We could go to the coast. Get away for a while. Do what pleases you, while you can._ "It doesn't have to be the coast," he finally says, softly. He looks away again. "Just. Anywhere with you, I guess." 

"Me?" 

"You please me," he admits, letting the words tumble from his lips. All his skill as a master wordsmith, all the words he's kept inside from the moment he met a witcher in a tavern and flowers began growing in his lungs—they all seem to evaporate from his tongue like steam, and all he's left with are those simple words. "You please me very much." 

He feels Geralt shift beside him, turning to look at him. A large, scarred hand comes into his vision, covering his own where he holds the moonflower. He sucks in a breath at the sparks that skitter up his skin where they touch. 

"What is it?" Geralt asks. "What is the Flower Cough?" 

Jaskier swallows thickly as the tickle at the back of his throat stirs. "It's the manifestation of a love so deep it takes physical form," he answers, unable to look his witcher in the eye. "As the love grows, the flowers grow, until you suffocate on your love." 

Geralt makes a wounded sound. "Is there no cure?" 

"Confession," he says, thinking back to his first meeting with Yennefer, and the things she'd said. "Helps slow the growth, at least. It doesn't go away, but it's manageable." 

"Can it not be fully eradicated?" 

Jaskier takes a deep breath, feels the brush of petals against his lungs, an odd sensation like fingers on the wrong side of his skin. He wonders if Geralt can hear it. "If the love is returned," he says. "If you confess and the love is returned, the flowers wither and die." 

He finally looks up at his witcher, heart beating quick and loud in his chest. Geralt's brow is furrowed. "Why should that make a difference? Whether it's returned or not?"

Jaskier shrugs. "You're sharing your love if it's returned. There's none to keep and feed the curse." 

It's a guess, of course, but he thinks it makes the most sense. If he could truly share his love, openly and without restraint, his chest would not feel so full with the weight of it, aching to burst free, and so wouldn't be freeing itself in the form of moonflowers in his lungs, creeping up his throat to be expelled. 

"Have you confessed?" Geralt asks, and Jaskier blinks at him. "Have you confessed your love?" 

"I—" Jaskier laughs helplessly. "I did not think my love would be welcome," he admits. "You're so taciturn, always saying you need no one. I didn't want to put you in the position to have to let me down easy." 

It must count as a confession, because immediately, the tickle in his throat recedes, and when he breathes, there's no stir in his chest, no flutter of petals in his lungs. The weight lifts in him, just a little, and he relaxes, slumping into his witcher's side. 

Geralt, stunned into silence, finally finds his voice. "What?" 

Jaskier can't help but smile, turning to press it into the softness of his witcher's worn shirt. "I love you," he says, simple and easy, and gods, but how hasn't he said it before already? 

He can feel the way Geralt tenses up, but he doesn't move, just keeps his head on his shoulder and stays pressed up against his side. He _stays,_ and eventually, Geralt relaxes too, and Jaskier closes his eyes as he feels Geralt tilt his head to rest it against his own. 

"I don't know that I've been in love before," Geralt says, long moments later. It's nearly dark out now, the stars twinkling into existence. "I can't say it's what I feel for you. But I know I care, and I want you to be happy. The thought of you dying from this—" 

He cuts off, his jaw clenching where Jaskier can feel it against his temple, and Jaskier waits. 

"I could not bear it," he finally says. "I've lost so many people already. I don't want to lose you too." 

His heart soars at the admission, and Jaskier feels buoyant, light. Slowly, he reaches out and takes Geralt's hand in his, lacing their fingers, and he leans away just enough to look into those gold eyes he'd fallen for the first day he saw them. 

"And that's enough," he says, eyes dropping to Geralt's mouth and coming back up. "That's all I need." 

"But is it all you want?" Geralt asks, and his eyes drop to Jaskier's mouth. "Or would something more please you?" 

" _You_ please me," he repeats, voice a whisper, and he smiles against his witcher when they meet in a kiss. 

The moonflower in his hand glows in the moonlight before slowly withering away. 

**Author's Note:**

> two things:  
> 1) the moonflower is a subspecies of the morning glory family and the meanings i could find were "mortality of life" and "love that is in vain" which i think are both a really good representation of geraskier
> 
> 2) i hinted at it but if it wasn't clear: yennefer had hanahaki before her transformation where she gave up her feelings for istredd along with her womb for power
> 
> hmu [twitter](http://twitter.com/troubadorer) / [tumblr](http://geraltofriviasleftbuttcheek.tumblr.com)


End file.
